Spending Cuts Are Great When the Spending Is Stupid

There’s a tired fight raging in Washington between anti-government people who want spending cuts and pro-government people who don’t. Here’s a crazy thought: Maybe we should spend more on good things and less on dumb things. I’m in the pro-government camp, but I’d be thrilled to eliminate almost all of the $380 billion worth of spending targeted by the new Green Scissors report, a catalog of fiscally wasteful and environmentally destructive programs identified by activists from the left and the right.

I’ve got a few quibbles with the Green Scissors list. I get the skepticism about the Department of Energy’s loan guarantees, but they’re a pretty cost-effective way to promote our transition to a clean-energy economy. I understand why some enviros think clean coal an oxymoron, but as long as the world keeps burning the stuff, it would be nice to figure out a way to do it in a less catastrophic manner. And I’m willing to bet that whoever nominated the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy for the report—I’m looking at you, anonymous right-winger from the Heartland Institute—has never visited it or talked to the geniuses running it. ARPA-E is our moon mission, and it will produce some amazing breakthroughs that just wouldn’t happen without a government boost.

But those are just quibbles. Hopefully, the congressional Super-Duper Cuts Committee will take a look at this report before it starts slashing Social Security or food stamps or public transit or vaccinations or other government programs with legitimate public purposes. And those of us who don’t hate government ought to be ruthless about government programs that don’t have legitimate public purposes. If there were fewer of them, maybe fewer people would hate government.